Baker’s Dead Wrong: Sign The Export Control Bill!

The Center for Security Policy today urged President Bush to reject Secretary of State Baker’s recommendation that the United States not send a clear message to those governments contemplating the use of chemical and biological weapons and to those companies trafficking in related technologies. It called on the President to do so by signing legislation passed by the Congress last week, H.R. 4653, which will accomplish this and many other salutary purposes by establishing needed penalties against offending countries and companies.

In a paper released today, entitled Veto Shmeeto: Bush Should Sign the New Export Administration Act, the Center provides a qualified endorsement of this legislation, the Export Administration Act Amendments of 1990, and most of its revisions of current U.S. export control laws.

"In completing work on this legislation, Congress took heed of many of the serious problems identified by the Center in earlier drafts," noted Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director. "It rewrote this bill to give a far greater role to the Secretary of Defense in reviewing Commerce Department actions and to address the emerging threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In so doing, it substantially repudiated the principal author of the House version of this legislation, Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D-CT), who hoped instead to achieve a wholesale — and quite reckless — dismantling of the present technology security regime."

Gaffney added, "That said, once the bill has been signed, Congress should urgently reconsider a few vestiges of the Gejdenson legislation that have survived the House-Senate conference committee. In particular, it should reconsider the decision taken in H.R. 4653 to grant the Secretary of Commerce the exclusive right to compose the list of goods and technologies which the United States will control. Since a primary function of the Department of Commerce is to promote U.S. exports, this is tantamount to leaving the fox in charge of chicken coop security."

Secretary Baker is advising the President to veto the bill on the grounds that its sanctions language will unduly restrict presidential flexibility. Seventy-nine senators, including the majority and minority leaders, have pointed out that maximum discretion is preserved by the bill and that such a response to "the scourge of chemical weapons" is needed.

"It is worth noting that the State Department was also opposed to the use of sanctions in the Toshiba case," observed Jennifer White, one of the Center’s senior associates. "When Congress ignored State’s advice and imposed such sanctions, however, the result was highly salubrious. The President should endorse — not undercut — Congress’ present, strong action against traffickers in chemical and biological weapons." Click here for copies of Veto Shmeeto, .